Frank Hurley

James Francis (Frank) Hurley (1885-1962) is regarded as an extraordinary Australian photographer, adventurer, filmmaker and writer. His craving for exploration and adventure complemented his image-making to produce some of the most enduring achievements of Australian photography, and a profound impact on a young Australian film industry.

Hurley's most consequential work comes from his first two trips to Antarctica. Among his best known images, are those of the destruction of the Endurance, during Ernest Shackleton's legendary ill-fated Antarctic expedition of 1914-16.

Hurley was much more than an Antarctic photographer, however. In addition to his incredible image-making activity in Australia, he was an official correspondent during the First and Second World Wars. In the 1920s, he also ventured into the Torres Strait and Papua New Guinea at a time when few people of European descent had ever been there.

Hurley was a self-confessed showman'. He embellished images to maximise their visual impact, for example by using the technique of composite printing (combining the best elements of several shots into one). While such manipulation was common in pictorial photography, Hurley was criticised for using it to enhance documentary images.

Years after his death, interest in Hurley's work continues. His adventures, photographs and films are the subject of various publications and exhibitions, and his material is keenly sought for private and public collections, internationally and locally.

Hurley's early life

Hurley was born in 1885 in Glebe, Sydney, to Margaret Agnes and Edward Harrison Hurley. At 13 years old, he jumped on a freight train to work in the Lithgow steel mill. Here, encouraged by his foreman, he developed an interest in photography.

Hurley returned to Sydney after two years away, where he worked at the docks, among other places, and taught himself the technical side of photography.

In 1905, Hurley found work as a photographer with Cave & Co., a postcard business. He quickly earned a reputation for the high technical quality of his photos, and for the great risks he took to get them, including standing in front of a steam train off old Hawkesbury River Bridge.

By 1908, Hurley was a partner, and in 1910 he mounted his first exhibition in Sydney. However his fortunes soon became mixed - first, the business suffered at the hands of a pre-war economic depression, and then Cave died.

Antarctica, a continent unknown

In 1911, Australian explorer Douglas Mawson hired Hurley as the Australasian Antarctic Expedition photographer. The pair shared a total of four Antarctic expeditions, but this first one was significant because it forged Hurley's photographic and cinematographic prowess, as well as his sheer courage and resourcefulness in difficult conditions.

As expedition photographer, Hurley's images were not only important in documenting an unknown continent, but they also generated funds for future exploration. Hurley's expedition film, Home of the Blizzard(1913) was an astonishing first effort at cinematography. It reaped popular and financial success, and secured him a place on the Ernest Shackleton Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914-16.

Antarctic warrior with a camera'

The aim of Shackleton's 1914 expedition was to cross Antarctica on foot. Instead, the expedition was marooned until 1916, with the ship Endurance destroyed by pack-ice. Hurley's images reflect the crew's 22-month ordeal.

Despite extremely difficult conditions, Hurley's daring and stamina to take pictures was unrelenting. According to Lionel Greenstreet, First Officer of the Endurance, 'Hurley is a warrior with his camera and would go anywhere or do anything to get a picture.'

Incredibly, after the expedition Hurley returned to South Georgia Island to complete his film footage. The resulting documentary In the Grip of the Polar Pack Ice premiered in London in 1917 and began its Australian tour in 1919. It was another popular and financial success.

The mad photographer'

Hurley served alongside George Hubert Wilkins as the first official photographer to the Australian Imperial Forces in the First World War. The troops dubbed him the mad photographer' because of his derring-do to get pictures. He took some of the only known colour photos of the war.

Hurley, Frank (1885-1962), The morning after the first battle of Passchendaele [Passendale] showing Australian Infantry wounded around a blockhouse near the site of Zonnebeke Railway Station, 12 October 1917, photograph gelatin silver, 53.8 x 48.8cm. Image courtesy National Library of Australia: nla.pic-an24574133.

While Hurley believed his manipulation of images helped capture the reality of battle, the influential war correspondent and historian, Charles Bean, accused them of being fakes.

While in Cairo, Hurley met Antoinette Theirault-Leighton. They married in 1918, and soon after moved to Sydney where they had four children, raised mostly by Antoinette. Hurley's adventures were elsewhere...

Pearls and Savages

Between 1920 and 1923, Hurley made two long expeditions to the Torres Strait Islands and Papua. Hurley again melded adventure and image-making to produce the successful anthropological film, Pearls and Savages (1921), followed by the even more successful Pearls and Savages book.

Hurley's photographs similarly targeted the armchair traveller'; conveying an exotic people and culture. For the Papuans, his images are an important visual record of that time.

Following Pearls and Savages, Hurley was accused of exploiting the Papuans and using improper methods to collect artefacts for the Australian Museum, Sydney. As a result, he was refused entry to Papua to produce his two feature films, Jungle Woman (1925) and Hound of the Deep (1926), which were shot in Dutch New Guinea. Jungle Woman, which Hurley scripted and directed, was another film success.

In 1940, Hurley returned to capturing war in the Middle East. He produced more than 60 newsreels covering military operations and VIP visits, and produced 11 films for the British Ministry of Information.

During this time, Hurley also took his own non-official images, focussing on the traditional culture, landscape and historic architecture.

Hurley's later years

Hurley returned to Australia in 1946. Other than the hugely successful publication of his book, Shackleton's Argonauts (1948), the definitive Hurley title of his later life was Australia: A Camera Study (1955).

Hurley's camera studies of Australia range from landscapes and primary industry to city portraits, social life and the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge. He covered vast distances to produce these studies, satiating his desire for melding travel with image-making.

In 1961, at 75 years of age, Hurley journeyed across the Nullarbor, where he apparently had a stroke, but simply put it behind him. A year later, he returned home from an assignment, sat in his favourite armchair, where he stayed all night and died the next day. He was survived by his wife, three daughters and son.

During his 60-year career, Hurley took thousands of photographs, worked on more than 60 films and wrote more than 20 books. He enjoyed popular acclaim, commercial success and official recognition with a Polar Medal in 1919 and an Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1941.